Trump has acknowledged his foiled effort to reach the Capitol. “Secret Service wouldn’t let me,” he told The Washington Post in April. “I wanted to go. I wanted to go so badly. Secret Service says you can’t go. I would have gone there in a minute.”
Friday Reads: SCOTUS Runs Amok, Congress Vacations, and the Trump Mob got the Blues
Posted: July 1, 2022 Filed under: Black Women Lead, Civil Liberties, Civil Rights, Climate change, ethics, SCOTUS, Second Amendment, Surreality, the GOP, The Insurrection Fallout, The Right Wing, Trump Trash 14 CommentsHappy Friday!
We’re closing in on Independence Day! I’m sure the six signers of the Declaration of Independence that led to me being here sure wouldn’t be happy with the mess we’re in today. None of the nation’s three branches of government is fairing well in today’s polls either. A new Emerson Poll is out and Americans are clearly not happy or trustful of any of the branches.
The latest Emerson College Polling national survey of US voters finds a majority disapprove of President Biden, Congress, and the Supreme Court. Biden has a 40% job approval, while 53% disapprove of the job he is doing as president. Since last month, Biden’s approval has increased two points. The US Congress has a 19% job approval, while 70% disapprove of the job they are doing. The Supreme Court has a 36% job approval; 54% disapprove.
Spencer Kimball, Executive Director of Emerson College Polling said, “Independent voters align more with Democrats on Supreme Court approval: 71% of Democrats and 58% of Independents disapprove of the job that the Supreme Court is doing whereas a majority, 56%, of Republicans approve of the job they are doing.”
In the 2022 November Midterm Elections, 46% of voters plan to vote for the Republican congressional candidate on the ballot while 43% plan to support the Democratic congressional candidate. This congressional ballot test has remained relatively stagnant since last month’s national poll, where Republicans also led by three points on the congressional ballot, 45% to 42%.
Looking at 2024, 64% of Democratic primary or caucus voters think President Biden should be the Democratic nominee for president, while 36% think he should not be. In the 2024 Republican Primary, 55% of voters would support former President Trump, 20% Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, and 9% former Vice President Mike Pence. No other potential GOP candidate clears 5%.
In a hypothetical 2024 Presidential Election matchup between President Biden and former President Trump, Trump holds 44% support while Biden has 39% support; 12% would vote for someone else and 5% are undecided. “Since last month, Trump has held his share of support while Biden’s support has reduced four points.”
The Trump family crime syndicate certainly is a cult. Let’s hope we don’t get a repeat where the left just boycotts our democracy because they can’t get their way. The desire to see Roe as national law is strong everywhere but in the White Christian Nationalist party.
Following the Supreme Court decision to overturn its 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling, which leaves abortion legality up to the states, 59% of voters think that Congress should pass a law legalizing the right to abortion. Among women, support for the legislation is higher: 62% think Congress should pass a law legalizing the right to abortion compared to 55% of men.
“While a majority, 65%, of Republicans oppose Congress passing a law to legalize the right to abortion, the policy has majority support among Democrats and Independent voters, 81% of Democratic voters and 58% of Independent voters support federal legislative action to legalize abortion,” Kimball said.
Congressional legalization of the right to abortion has the highest support among 18-29 year olds: 76% support a federal legalization of abortion, compared to 59% of 30-49 year olds, 50% of 50-64 year olds, and 56% of those over 65.
A majority, 57%, say that they or someone that they’ve known have had an abortion. Among those who have had or know someone who has had an abortion, 62% think Congress should pass a law legalizing the right to abortion.
There are also some numbers on the impact of the public hearings held by the January 6th committee.
The January 6th hearings have had a split impact on voters’ intention to vote for Donald Trump in 2024 if he were to run: 35% say it makes them less likely, 32% say it makes them more likely, 28% say it makes no difference.
Kimball noted, “Half of Republicans say they are more likely to vote for Trump following the January 6th hearings, while a plurality, 38%, of Independents say they are less likely to support Trump if he runs in 2024. More specifically, among those who voted for Trump in 2020, nine percent say they are less likely to vote for him again in 2024 after the hearings.”
Kimball continued, “The January 6th hearings reflect an educational divide, regarding their impact on Trump support: those with a college degree or less are about 33% less likely to vote for Trump because of the hearings, whereas 51% of those with a postgraduate degree are less likely to support Trump because of the hearings.”
Yes, Trump loves him some undereducated people. There are also some numbers on the economy–which is labeled the most important issue by the majority of voters–and gun regulation.
In other polling news, Reproductive and Women’s rights are moving quickly up the priority scale. It’s hard to see that we will get anything done without some new blood in the senate.
A new poll finds a growing percentage of Americans calling out abortion or women’s rights as priorities for the government in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, especially among Democrats and those who support abortion access.
With midterm elections looming, President Joe Biden and Democrats will seek to capitalize on that shift.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in remarks immediately after the decision that “reproductive freedom is on the ballot in November.” But with pervasive pessimism and a myriad of crises facing the nation, it’s not clear whether the ruling will break through to motivate those voters — or just disappoint them.
Everyone is still reeling from the number of extremely radical opinions forced on us by a group of White Nationalist Christians on the Supreme Court.
Well, that’s a nice statement. Now, DO SOMETHING!
From Hayes Brown writing at MSNBC: “Congress has let the Supreme Court run amok. The founders would be baffled by a judiciary that Congress can’t — or won’t — balance.”
The Supreme Court ended its term Thursday having produced a string of decisions that with casual brutality threatened Americans’ privacy, health and well-being. Democrats, in the face of this assault on the rights and privileges of their constituents, haven’t responded with the necessary anger or urgency.
The framers intended Congress to be the most powerful of the three branches of government, consisting of representatives of the people and the states. The executive was to be feared and constrained; the judiciary was, in comparison, an afterthought mostly left to future Congresses to craft. In drafting the Federalist Papers, Alexander Hamilton considered the courts the “least dangerous to the political rights of the Constitution.”
What we’ve seen this term is a court determined to prove Hamilton wrong. While Congress has the ability to curtail the authority that the unbalanced, undemocratic courts have accumulated, there seems to be almost no drive among Democrats to even challenge the third branch.
Let me clarify that I do not propose invalidating the principle of judicial review, whereby the courts have the authority to block and overturn legislative and executive actions. The Supreme Court’s function as arbiter of the Constitution is an important and needed one, given the possible abuses from the other branches.
It’s a power that is more easily used to strike down than to build. As Vox’s Ian Milhiser has noted, while the court can’t establish an agency to protect the rights of citizens, it can absolutely erase one out of existence.
Here’s some historical reference from Ian Milhiser at Vox: “The case against the Supreme Court of the United States. The Court was the midwife of Jim Crow, the right hand of union busters, the dead hand of the Confederacy, and now is one of the chief architects of America’s democratic decline.”
Meanwhile, the Supreme Court’s public approval ratings are in free fall. A Gallup poll taken in June before the Court’s decision in Dobbs found that only 25 percent of respondents have “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in the Court, a historic low. And that’s after nearly a year’s worth of polls showing the Court’s approval in steady decline.
To thisI say, “good.” The Dobbs decision is the culmination of a decades-long effort by Republicans to capture the Supreme Court and use it, not just to undercut abortion rights but also to implement an unpopular agenda they cannot implement through the democratic process.
And the Court’s Republican majority hasn’t simply handed the Republican Party substantive policy victories. It is systematically dismantling voting rights protections that make it possible for every voter to have an equal voice, and for every political party to compete fairly for control of the United States government. Alito, the author of the opinion overturning Roe, is also the author of two important decisions dismantling much of the Voting Rights Act.
This behavior is consistent with the history of an institution that once blessed slavery and described Black people as “beings of an inferior order.” It is consistent with the Court’s history of union-busting, of supporting racial segregation, and of upholding concentration camps.
Moreover, while the present Court is unusually conservative, the judiciary as an institution has an inherent conservative bias. Courts have a great deal of power to strike down programs created by elected officials, but little ability to build such programs from the ground up. Thus, when an anti-governmental political movement controls the judiciary, it will likely be able to exploit that control to great effect. But when a more left-leaning movement controls the courts, it is likely to find judicial power to be an ineffective tool.
The Court, in other words, simply does not deserve the reverence it still enjoys in much of American society, and especially from the legal profession. For nearly all of its history, it’s been a reactionary institution, a political one that serves the interests of the already powerful at the expense of the most vulnerable. And it currently appears to be reverting to that historic mean.

WASHINGTON, DC – JUNE 30: In this handout provided by the Supreme Court, Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. (R) looks on as Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson signs the Oaths of Office in the Justices’ Conference Room at the Supreme Court on June 30, 2022 in Washington, DC. Jackson was sworn in as the newest Supreme Court Justice today, replacing the now-retired Justice Stephen G. Breyer. (Photo by Fred Schilling/Collection of the Supreme Court of the United States via Getty Images)
Newly sworn-in Justice Ketanji Brown-Jackson is going to join the normal group of women on the court and will have her job cut out for her!
President Joe Biden in a written statement praised Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s historic swearing in as the first Black female Justice of the Supreme Court, calling it a “profound step forward.”
“Her historic swearing in today represents a profound step forward for our nation, for all the young, Black girls who now see themselves reflected on our highest court, and for all of us as Americans,” Biden said in the written statement.
Biden also thanked retiring Justice Stephen Breyer for “his many years of exemplary service.”
Here are some links to news on the latest January 6th Committee’s findings.
From Politico: New details of Jan. 6 panel’s mystery messages emerge
“[A person] let me know you have your deposition tomorrow,” read a slide that the Jan. 6 committee broadcast at the end of Hutchinson’s hearing, which Vice Chair Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) characterized as pressure on a key witness. “He wants me to let you know that he’s thinking about you. He knows you’re loyal, and you’re going to do the right thing when you go in for your deposition.”
Meadows is the person whose name was redacted in that slide. Contents of that final deposition were described to POLITICO, which could not independently corroborate the identity of the intermediary or that Meadows directed any message be delivered to Hutchinson before her second deposition.
From David Rothkopf of The Daily Beast: Put a Fork in Donald Trump—the Ex-President Is Done
Mark it on your calendars. This was the week the meteoric political career of Donald Trump did what meteors often do and collided with planet Earth, leaving a large, ugly mark on the landscape.
The fact that Trump may soon announce his candidacy for the presidency in the days ahead is itself more of a sign of his political collapse than it is of any strength he may have. The first time he ran for president, he did it because he thought it would boost his brand. This time he is likely to do it because he thinks it may make him more difficult to prosecute. And because he can use it to mount one last big attempt to fleece his supporters.
From the Washington Post: ‘Take me up to the Capitol now’: How close Trump came to joining rioters
The excursion that almost happened came into clearer focus this week, as the House committee investigating the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 presented explosive testimony and records detailing Trump’s fervent demands to lead his supporters mobbing the seat of government. Though Trump’s trip was ultimately thwarted by his own security officers, the new evidence cuts closer to the critical question of what he knew about the violence in store for that day.
But as Trump repeatedly floated the idea in the weeks leading up to Jan. 6, several of his advisers doubted he meant it or didn’t take the suggestion seriously. One senior administration official said Trump raised the prospect repeatedly but in a “joking manner.”
As a result, the White House staff never turned Trump’s stated desires into concrete plans. Press officers made no preparations for a detour to the Capitol, such as scheduling an additional stop for the motorcade and the pool of reporters who follow the president’s movements. There was no operational advance plan drafted for the visit. No speech was written for him to deliver on the Hill, and it wasn’t clear exactly what Trump would do when he got there, said the person who talked with Trump about the idea.
From MediaIte’s Colby Hall: “Rudy Giuliani Deletes Tweet Insisting Cassidy Hutchinson Was Not Present When He Asked for a Pardon.” Giuliani has to be so close to jail that he can smell the jello.
Flagged by Ron Flipowski, who noted “She wasn’t there when I asked Trump for a pardon. But I never asked for a pardon. Only Rudy.”
He deleted the apparently self-incriminating Tweet and clarified that he never asked for a pardon …
So, that’s enough of the chaos for today. I’m just dreaming of BBQ chicken, potato salad, and a really big piece of my mother’s chocolate cake.
Have a nice long weekend!
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
Sunday Reads: 🖤🤎❤️🧡💛💚💜💙🤍💖
Posted: June 12, 2022 Filed under: 2021 Insurrection, 2022 Primaries, abortion rights, American Gun Fetish, Black Lives Matter, Civil Rights, Domestic terrorism, Donald Trump, fetus fetishists, Fox News, GLBT Rights, Gun Control, hate crimes, Human Rights, January 6 Committee Public Hearings, LGBTQ, morning reads, open thread, PLUB Pro-Life-Until-Birth, Political and Editorial Cartoons, Republican politics, right wing hate grouups, the GOP, The Right Wing, white nationalists | Tags: Trans Rights 50 Comments
Good morning, aside from this being #PRIDE month… I’d like to remind our Sky Dancing family that we are all inclusive.
Meaning all are welcome.

However, I’ve been a bit put off by some of the tone against a particular group of the LGBTQ community. Specifically the 🏳️⚧️ T as in Trans…
This dialogue has gotten me upset and uncomfortable, and I have to speak out. If we are to be a blog that accepts the concept that all humans deserve acknowledgment that yes…human rights are exactly what that is…human rights, then Trans rights are Human rights.
Just like Women’s rights are Human rights, Black Lives Matter, Immigrant rights are Human rights, Kids rights are Human rights…it is the statement…Human rights are the fucking floor here!
Respect is standard.
My point being, inclusiveness is the key.
Intersectionality.
And that is not always the message which comes through.
So…let me say, for my own personal self here, that certain opinions and statements in the blog’s comments do not reflect my beliefs in any way. I fully support the LGBTQ community and that includes all, the T for Trans too.
We can be a champion for Women, all Women.
Yes, Women and People get pregnant and Women and People have abortions.
Now that I’ve said what I wanted to say for some time…
Let’s start with something to clear the air:
Now, the cartoons:






















































Meanwhile…yesterday in Idaho:
“Reclaim America” is what is written on the back of that asshole’s shirt.


We had to put down Beef on Thursday, it turned out to be an exact year to the day since Bebe adopted him.




I’m going to end this post with a trip down memory lane…and this is not meant to be a comment on violence against women. It is more of a comment on how nice Alexis was, she packed up all that luggage for Blake and his “blond tramp” …
Dynasty…sweet…vicious.
This is an open thread. (Please, no anti-Trans comments…at least on Sundays and Wednesdays…)
Have a safe day today. Be careful.
Manic Monday Reads: Double Standard Edition
Posted: November 29, 2021 Filed under: Civil Liberties, Civil Rights, Feminists, The Media SUCKS, The Right Wing, the villagers 21 CommentsGood Day Sky Dancers!
The one thing that’s become more apparent to me than anything else is the double standard in the media and elsewhere with what they tolerate from white men who are screaming like scalded hogs at the moment and essentially trying to install an autocratic government to retain their privilege and control of the country’s major institutions. Loss of privilege is not the same as being unable to secure your civil liberties and rights.
So why is she getting buried in bad press by the Beltway media, as they gleefully pile on? Unloading breathless, the gossip-heavy coverage is not only detached from reality, the press has gone sideways portraying Harris as lost and ineffective — in over her head.
It’s impossible to miss the increasingly condescending tone of the coverage, as Harris serves as the first woman vice president in U.S. history, and the first person of color to hold that position. The Atlantic has dismissed her as “uninteresting” and mocked her lack of political agility.
The recent frenzy of gotcha stories, which perfectly reflects petty, right-wing attacks on Harris, represents an entirely new way of covering a sitting vice president. None of the white men who previously served in that position were put under this kind of a microscope, and certainly not months into their first term. “News outlets didn’t have beat reporters who focused largely on covering Dick Cheney, Joe Biden or Mike Pence, but they do for Harris,” the Post’s Perry Bacon noted. “Her every utterance is analyzed, her exact role in the Biden White House scrutinized.”
Worse, the premises used to support the steady drumbeat of negative, nit-picky coverage revolve around dopey optics and pointless parlor gossip. (She’s now rivals with Pete Buttigieg!)
Keep reading for the glaring examples all over the media. And notice it’s the gay guy and the black woman getting the nitpick treatment. Don’t start me on the number of women of color who’ve endured the tribulation of justifying themselves in from the of the old white Republicans of the Senate. My guess is it’s the Hillary treatment where you nitpick and find false scandals until she never becomes electible again. But, my question is WHY?
Yeah, It’s the Hillary Treatment alright. From the Telegraph: With Kamala Harris looking unelectable, the Democrats are considering the nuclear option
Go there if you even care. Or you might even try this one if you dare: Axios: GOP courts anti-vaxxers with jobless aid
Ask yourself who really hates our democracy and country now.
Right-wing men are terrifically insecure. As best as I can determine, they’re very much afraid of any competition for anything. Righteous Hackers are working to take their white nationalist patriarchal movement down. This is from The Guardian. How far-right extremist groups face exposure from army of hacktivists. Data leaks and breaches by so-called ‘ethical hackers’ – often assisted by poor security practices – have exposed inner workings of groups and the nature of the movement as a whole.
Throughout 2021, websites associated with far-right extremist groups and extremist-friendly platforms and hosts have suffered from data leaks and breaches that have exposed the inner workings of far-right groups, and the nature of the movement as a whole.
The data has been exfiltrated in breaches engineered by so-called “ethical hackers” – often assisted by poor security practices from website administrators – and by activists who have penetrated websites in search of data and information.
Experts and activists say that attacks on their online infrastructure is likely to continue to disrupt and hamper far-right groups and individuals and makes unmasking their activities far more likely – often resulting in law enforcement attention or loss of employment.
Numerous far-right groups have suffered catastrophic data breaches this year, in perhaps a reflection of a lack of technical expertise among such activists. Jim Salter, a systems administrator and tech journalist, said: “Extremists, and extremist-friendly entities, have a noticeable shortage of even-tempered, thoughtful people doing even-tempered, thoughtful work at securing sites and managing personnel.”
There are many examples.
In the wake of the 6 January attacks, the Guardian reported on the leak from American Patriots III% website, which allowed the entire membership of the organization to be identified.
In that case, poor website configuration had allowed savvy researchers to view and republish the information on the open web.
In July, another organization affiliated with the Three Percenters, which monitoring organizations classify as an anti-government group or a component of the militia movement, had internal chats leaked which reportedly exhibited a “thirst for violence”.
Then, in September, it emerged that the website of the anti-government group the Oath Keepers was comprehensively breached, with membership lists, emails and what appeared to be the entire content of their server suddenly put on public display.
This is an extremely interesting read. And I just had to put this in wondering if the press will find a way to pick on First Lady Biden’s traditional Christmas tastes.
I imagine we’ll get lectured on the aesthetic of boring. And to our next question.
So, this trial is going to be interesting because we’ve only going one person to take trial for the sins of Jeffrey Epstein.

NASA renames headquarters after Mary Jackson, its first black woman engineer
This is via Law and Crime: “An Anonymous Jury Has Been Selected for Ghislaine Maxwell’s Sex Trafficking Trial. Here’s What We Know About the Panel.”
Shielded in anonymity, the jurors selected to preside over Ghislaine Maxwell’s sex trafficking trial will be identified only by their number in the interest of preserving their privacy and safety, but some details about them and their awareness of the Jeffrey Epstein scandal have been publicly disclosed earlier this month.
The 12-person panel, and six alternate jurors waiting on standby, were sworn in by U.S. District Judge Alison Nathan following a painstaking selection process. Judge Nathan whittled down a pool of 600 candidates with surveys, first with a written questionnaire and then one-on-one questions held in open court, known as voir dire proceedings.
Rejecting a request by Maxwell’s defense team to conduct this hearing secretly, Nathan held voir dire in full press and public view earlier this month. Potential jurors answered questions on the public record, with certain information—like their names—kept under seal.
Here is a breakdown of the jurors, a group that includes mostly highly educated professionals representing a broad cross-section of New York City and neighboring counties. The list may change as two newly-empaneled jurors expressed conflicts after being chosen. As the biographical information comes from voir dire transcripts, these profiles do not currently include a race and gender breakdown. The jury, however, appears to be diverse in these categories, as well as age and educational background.
So, the media continues to miss the point. And I’m tired already of writing about it. Did I mention the budget/deficit ceiling battle is about to restart?
Congress is only a couple of weeks away from hitting the Dec. 15 deadline to raise the federal debt limit, and Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) don’t appear to be anywhere close to a deal.
Democrats insist that Schumer will not burn up a week of Senate floor time to use the budget reconciliation process to raise the debt limit with only Democratic votes.
And Republicans say there’s no way that McConnell will be able to round up 10 Republican votes to quash an expected filibuster from conservatives such as Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and allow Democrats to pass debt limit legislation with a simple majority under regular order.
The Republicans are not capable of running anything but a Circus Sideshow. We need to vote them out where we can.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
Sunday Reads: “Historic meeting between two dictators…”
Posted: June 10, 2018 Filed under: American Gun Fetish, Canada, children, Civil Liberties, Congress, corruption, Diplomacy Nightmares, Foreign Affairs, Fox News, Gun Control, ICE Immigration and Customs Enforcement, immigration, India, Kim Jung Un, legislation, morning reads, North Korea, open thread, Refugees, Republican politics, Russia, the GOP, The Right Wing, Trade, Trump, tRump crimes against humanity, Turkey, U.S. Politics, US & Canada, We are so F'd, WE TOLD THEM SO | Tags: Angela Merkel, Emmanuel Macron, Larry Kudlow 28 Comments
I think this part of Boston Boomer’s post title from yesterday was spot on: “These Days I Often Cry While Reading News” …yup, I do that too! Only I would take it a step further, and say that lately, I often start to hyperventilate and have anxiety attacks while scrolling through the Twitter feed. (I am not being hyperbolic with that statement either. I do start to hyperventilate.) I can feel my breathing becoming more intense and faster…forward towards out of control. My heart rate increases dramatically. My palms sweat and feel distinctly cold at the same time. I can actually feel my eyebrows becoming one, from the pained expression my face has contorted into…
Yeah, I think we all know that feeling I am describing above…am I right?
That is why this little asteroid of a nugget that passed my way this morning made me cringe:
And as you will see, no one corrected the “misstatement?” If that is what the fucking thing was…
Fox & Friends host slips: Trump’s North Korea summit is a ‘historic meeting between two dictators’
During an interview with former White House Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci, [Abby] Huntsman interrupted to noted that Trump had arrived for the summit in Singapore.
“There is the president of the United States, Donald Trump, about to walk down those [Air Force Once] stairs, stepping foot in Singapore as we wait this historic summit with the North Korea dictator Kim Jong-un.”
“Anthony, talk to us about this moment,” she said, turning to Scaramucci. “This is history. We are living — regardless of what happens in that meeting between the two dictators — what we are seeing right now, this is historic.”
Scaramucci then agreed… adding that Trump is a “disruptive risk taker”…not even missing a beat while continuing to fawn over the tangerine ass mouth, lavishing more praise on his dear leader as the segment went on. Video at the link.
The links I bring you today are pretty much things you may already be aware of, I don’t know anymore…War with Canada? I guess things are going as Putin planned?
To reiterate:
President Trump feuded with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and threatened to impose penalties on foreign automobile imports Saturday, capping an acrimonious meeting of the Group of Seven industrial nations that further frayed ties between the United States and its closest allies.
Trump said Saturday evening that he had instructed U.S. officials to withdraw support for a joint statement with other member nations he had backed just hours earlier, saying the United States would not join after Trudeau publicly criticized Trump’s trade policy.
European officials described things much differently. Their leaders confronted Trump about how his protectionist policies had given them no choice but to retaliate with tariffs of their own, a person familiar with the encounter said. These tariffs, they told Trump, would hurt everyone. Trump had tried to essentially splinter the European leaders by negotiating some changes with Germany and different ones with France, but those leaders appeared locked together.
They had been careful not to reveal their approach before meeting with Trump, although it appeared very calculated.
“If you have a strategy, do not explain your strategy before the meeting — because if you are explaining your strategy before the meeting, you are losing your strategy,” European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker told reporters.
(I thought that was funny…don’t know why.)
In Trump, some fear the end of the world order – The Washington Post
“What worries me most . . . is the fact that the rules-based international order is being challenged,” European Council President Donald Tusk said as the G-7 summit got underway. What is surprising, Tusk said, is that the challenge is driven not by the “usual suspects, but by its main architect and guarantor, the U.S.”
By the way:
Kudlow was on the Sunday shows, fucking things up even more:
Speculation on the Twitter is that Kudlow is drunk.
I don’t know, that sounds like crazy shit to me….Dak, your thoughts?
This is something>>>>
And I think we should revisit this thread:
And if all that shit doesn’t scare the shit out of you:
Over the many years since Congress passed the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) of 2001, the ACLU has dedicated itself to defending the civil liberties and human rights that have been threatened as a result of this resolution and its successors. The harms have included the drone killings of American citizens, broad surveillance of American citizens, the kidnapping and torture of suspects, and indefinite detention without charge or trial, even of an American citizen apprehended in the United States.
Now, Sens. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) and Tim Kaine (D-Va.) are working on a new AUMF that is even more damaging to our freedoms.
It would be hard to overstate the depth and breadth of the dangers to the Constitution, civil liberties, and human rights that the Corker-Kaine AUMF would cause. The Corker-Kaine AUMF would give the current president and all future presidents authority from Congress to engage in worldwide war, sending American troops to countries where we are not now at war and against groups that the president alone decides are enemies.
Uh, yeah…you read that, Kaine.
The Corker-Kaine AUMF would authorize force, without operational limitations, against eight groups in six countries. The president could then add to both lists, as long as the president reports the expansion to Congress. To be clear — the president would have unilateral authority to add additional countries — including the United States itself — to the list of countries where Congress is authorizing war. And the president would have unilateral authority to add additional enemies, including groups in the United States itself and even individual Americans, under its new authority for the president to designate “persons” as enemies.
Their proposal also contains a sleeper provision with the innocuous title, “Sec. 10 Conforming Amendment,” that would create a new legal basis for the military to capture and imprison individuals in indefinite detention without charge or trial. This greatly expands the scope of the infamous indefinite detention provision in the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act. Like the NDAA, the Corker-Kaine AUMF has no statutory prohibition against locking up American citizens or anyone picked up in the United States itself. While we continue to believe it would still be unlawful for a president to try indefinite detention of an American citizen in the United States (again), there is no reason for Congress to risk it.
About that photo released by Merkel:
Let’s look at a few other photos from the G7 Summit:
Macron had a couple good ones…he released his own tRump smackdown picture…you can see he is looking exasperated as he jesters toward the tRump asshole below:
What do you think he was saying to him? What’s a matter with you?
Oh wait, that is more of an Italian thing right?
(tRump has that covered as well, you see, he is already love crazy over Italy’s newly elected right-wing prime minister.)
Wow, the hard on tRump gets for these far right assholes is disgusting.
Back to Macron: Did you see the lasting impression he left on tRumps little hand?
Riot!
Just a few other links for y’all:
Update on What Senator Jeff Merkley Saw at an Immigrant Detention Center for Children | The Nation
Can you describe to me what you saw there?
I’ll tell you what was very difficult to see. One room had smaller cyclone fences—they look like the way you construct a dog kennel. They’re larger, but that’s the thought that comes to mind when you see them. Then they have these space blankets [light foil blankets], which is a very strange sight, to see kids using a space blanket as a cushion—but they don’t provide any cushion—or as a cover for privacy. There’re no mattresses in that section.
After they go through interviews, they go into a big warehouse. I called them cages, and the White House said that’s unfair, they aren’t cages. Well, call it a cell, then. It’s a cyclone-fence-constructed area. There were all these boys in this big enclosure, maybe three to four dozen boys, and they lined up, from smallest to largest, to get ready to go eat. The tiniest kid at the front of the line, he was knee-high to a grasshopper; he was 4, maybe 5 years old. They go up to age 16 or 17.
I understand that the McAllen facility operated under the Obama administration, to accommodate the surge of unaccompanied minors from Central America we saw in 2014. Do you know whether the children you saw last weekend are mainly unaccompanied minors, who came here alone, or whether they’re mainly kids who’ve been separated from their parents under this new DOJ policy?
Well, some may have come as unaccompanied minors, but many have not. The 4-year-old, it’s extremely unlikely he did, I suppose an older brother might have brought him across, but he was just so, so tiny. Many of them are kids who were taken away from their parents, in that facility. I asked: “Where are the kids who’ve been separated from their parents?” And they said “Here.”
But here’s the thing—as soon as they take the kids away from their parents, they call them “unaccompanied minors” too! I asked, which are the kids who came alone, and which came with their families, but no one could tell me. We do know that during a 12-day period in May 658 kids were separated from their families. We know that the number of immigrant children detained without parents went up 21 percent from May to June.
Another question is: Where do the kids end up, and can the parents reach them? They told me, “Oh yes, they get an A code,” and I asked, “Well, what’s an A code,” and it turns out it’s an “alien code,” a number where they can be tracked through the system. So it’s really not a difficulty for parents to find their children, they said. But the children are actually in one agency, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the parents are in another agency, the Department of Homeland Security. And according to immigration advocates I spoke with, they’re saying it’s actually not easy to track down the kids. The younger kids may be in a foster family, where the foster family doesn’t speak Spanish.
Fucking hell.
Ugh…I can’t take anymore!
This is an open thread.
I just want to share one more thing with you.
It is personal, but it is too sweet not to post…
Here is the wedding video from my daughter’s wedding. It is done by Izra Lopez, to the song
L-O-V-E by Nat King Cole.
It’s lovely and hopeful. And not just because it is my kid…the video is awesome.
Y’all have a better day today, here’s to love and hoping that tRump doesn’t fuck things up beyond repair this week.
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